The Maya
Archaeometallurgy Project was begun in 1999 by Dr. Scott E. Simmons at the large Maya
site of Lamanai, located in northern Belize on the New River Lagoon. Dr. Simmons teaches anthropology at the University of North Carolina
Wilmington and is Co-Principal Investigator of the Lamanai Archaeological
Project. Lamanai is the Spanish historic name for Lama’ an/ayin, which means “submerged crocodile.”Dr. David M. Pendergast, Curator Emeritus of the Royal Ontario Museum,
directed a long-term archaeological research project at Lamanai between 1974 and
1986.During that period over 940
structures were mapped and approximately 85 have either been sampled or
intensively excavated.

Dr. Elizabeth A. Graham, Co-Principal
Investigator for the Lamanai Archaeological Project, has directed research at
Lamanai since 1997. Dr. Graham teaches at University College London, and
she has overseen the work of a number of researchers from North America and
England at
Lamanai. Her
most recent work has focused in the elite, Terminal Classic residential group
called Ottawa.

The Maya Archaeometallurgy Project at Lamanai, Belize is a research program
focused on studying the specialized production of copper and bronze objects in
the Maya Lowland area during Postclassic and Spanish Colonial times. Since
its inception in 1999 a central goal of this project has been to understand the
relationships that existed between copper production and socioeconomic
differentiation and interdependence among the Maya.A larger goal for the research project is to provide insights into the
relationships that existed between craft production, socioeconomic integration,
and cultural evolution in state-level societies. Although copper artifacts have been recovered from several other Lowland
Maya sites, including a great number in the Sacred Cenote at Chichen Itzá, no
substantive research has been undertaken on the nature of Maya metallurgy as a
specialized craft activity. As a result,
the Maya Archaeometallurgy Project at Lamanai is the first and thus far only one of its
kind.

Metallurgy
appeared relatively late in precolumbian Mesoamerica (Hosler 1981, 1986, 1994,
1995; Lechtman 1985), and copper objects did not begin arriving at Maya Lowland
sites until very late in precolumbian times (Bray 1977; Hosler 1986, 1994;
Pendergast 1962; Sharer 1994; West 1994).
The Maya site of Lamanai, Belize has yielded more copper and copper alloyed
artifacts (185 total - see summary table below) from controlled archaeological excavations than any other
Southern Lowland Maya site (Pendergast 1990:173).Most
of these (n=114; 69.5%) can be categorized as status display objects, including
bells, tweezers, rings, buttons and other ornaments.

Copper and bronze (copper-tin and copper-arsenic)
began to arrive at Lamanai during the 13th century AD (Simmons et al.
n.d).Provenience studies conducted by Dr. Dorothy Hosler at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology revealed that the copper used to produce many of these
items was obtained from West Mexican ore fields.
At some point, probably during the Late or Terminal Postclassic Period, some of
Lamanai’s residents began experimenting with the production of copper status
and utilitarian items.

Evidence for local production of copper objects comes
from several sources. Four copper
ingots or pigs have been recovered from excavations in the Late Postclassic-Colonial
Period occupation zone at the site, and chemical compositional analyses
conducted by Dr. Hosler at MIT’s Center for Materials Research in Archaeology
and Ethnology (CMRAE) indicates that these ingots, along with other copper
objects, were made of stock metal derived from melting down copper artifacts.In addition, a number of pieces of scrap sheet metal, along with a number
of mis-cast copper bells, have been recovered during excavations at Lamanai.
Most recently, a number of very small, round pellets of copper were recovered
along with two probably casting reservoirs, which likely are remnants of the
lost-wax casting process. The small round pellets appear to be prills, which are
also by-products of metal casting activities.
Chemical and microstructural analyses under the direction of Dr. Aaron N. Shugar
are on-going at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute
(formerly the Center for Materials Research and Education).

The recovery of these prills and casting reservoirs
in the Spanish church zone, is
quite encouraging, and suggests that we may be very close to identifying a locus
of copper production activities at the site. At present, researchers know almost nothing
about the nature of Maya metallurgy overall, including the organization of this
technology and the role metallurgy played in Maya society in Late Postclassic
and early Spanish Colonial times. Therefore, it's hoped that the Maya
Archaeometallurgy Project will contribute much to our understanding of this
relatively unknown Maya technology and the role it played in maintaining the
level of socioeconomic complexity we see at a hand full of sites in northern
Belize and Yucatán at the time of Spanish contact.

Previous
Research at Lamanai

Investigations
conducted at Lamanai have shown that the site is important in contributing to
our understanding of Maya life both before and after the Spanish Colonial
Period.It is the only Maya Lowland
center that is known to have been continuously occupied for over three
millennia.A radiocarbon date
associated with abnormally high concentrations of corn pollen in The Harbour
indicate that the Maya had established an agriculturally based settlement at the
site at least by 1500 B.C.Archaeological
data and Spanish ethnohistoric accounts relate that the site was continuously
occupied at least until the mid to late 17th Century A.D.Lamanai not only survived the period in which numerous other Southern
Lowland Maya centers fell into decay and were abandoned, but archaeological data
indicate that life continued on in many ways as it had before 900 A.D.The site’s Postclassic Period inhabitants continued construction of
public and domestic buildings, engaged in long-distance trade, invented new and
different ceramic styles, developed copper metallurgy, and generally retained
some degree of political, economic and social complexity.

The arrival of
the Spaniards around A.D. 1540 found Lamanai's ancient ceremonial center long
abandoned and the Maya settlement concentrated in the southern third of the
site, with a small satellite community near the northern boundary.Erection of the first Spanish church at Lamanai followed the practice
widely in use elsewhere in the Americas of superimposing the Christian building
on an indigenous ceremonial structure. The process of Christianization, which
met with varying success, continued for the better part of a century, during
which time a second, larger mission church was erected. Whatever Spanish hopes
for Lamanai may have been, they began to disintegrate in the 17th century, and
by A.D. 1638 had come entirely to pieces as the community joined a widespread
Maya revolt.In A.D. 1641
Franciscan Fathers Fuensalida and Orbita found the church and other buildings
burnt and abandoned. This uprising signaled the end of Spanish influence at
Lamanai as it did throughout most of Belize.In the nineteenth century, Lamanai was occupied by British families
involved in sugarcane production.

Excavations at
Lamanai from 1974 to1986 were sponsored by the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum. Current and past work
has been supported by Lamanai Field Research Centre, Foundation for the
Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI), Heinz Family Foundation, York
University, Canadian Funds for Local Initiatives (CFLI), the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the National Geographic Society and the University of North
Carolina Wilmington (UNCW).

Research ObjectivesThe overall objective of the Maya Archaeometallurgy Project is to examine
current theoretical models focusing on the relationships between craft
specialization and socioeconomic complexity.We are interested in answering a variety of questions related to copper
metallurgy at Lamanai. On a more general level, we want to know what the study
of copper metallurgy at Lamanai can tell us about life at Lamanai in the
centuries immediately before and during Spanish colonial times.But we also have a variety of more specific questions. Why
did Lamanai metalsmiths begin producing copper objects in the Terminal
Postclassic and/or Spanish Colonial Periods when they could have continued to
import finished copper objects from West Mexico and elsewhere?What role did the production and use of copper objects have in the
maintenance of socioeconomic complexity at Lamanai during Postclassic times?How were production activities organized through time?What impacts did Spanish colonialism have on the production and use of
copper status and utilitarian items at Lamanai?

As
of August 2006, a total of 187 copper and copper-tin/copper-arsenic bronze
objects, most of which
are status display objects, have been excavated from Postclassic and Spanish
Colonial Period contexts at Lamanai.Data derived during the course of the Maya Archaeometallurgy Project at Lamanai
is being used to examine four specific organizational parameters of craft
specialization, described as 1) the
intensity of production, 2) the constitution
of the production unit, 3) the concentration
of production, and 4) the context of
production (Costin 1991; Costin and Hagstrum 1995).During the 2007 field season, research will focus on examining evidence
related to the last parameter of specialization, which refers to the nature of
control over production and distribution (Costin 1991:8).

Following the
political model of craft specialization, attached specialization arises when
elites exert considerable control over the production of certain craft items.Attached specialists produce high-value wealth objects, often from rare
or exotic materials, for the exclusive use and benefit of their elite patrons or
sponsors.Control of productive
activities has been cited as a means by which elites could legitimate their
power, authority and connections to supernatural dieties (Brumfiel 1987; Costin
1991; Earle 1987).Close spatial proximity of specialist household structures
and/or production areas to elite residential or administrative areas is seen as
an archaeological indicator of attached specialization (Brumfiel and Earle
1987:5; Costin 1991:25; Earle 1987:72, 2004).Additionally,
the distributions of high-value wealth goods throughout site areas should be
limited, as research at other Maya centers, such as Palenque (Rands and Bishop
1980:43), Copán (Webster et al. 1993:353) and Tikal (Moholy-Nagy 1997:308), has
shown.

Archaeological field investigations
proposed for the summer of 2007 will take place in the immediate vicinity of
Lamanai’s two Spanish mission churches, where Late Postclassic and Spanish
Colonial period occupation was concentrated (Pendergast 1981, 1984, 1986, 1991).Roughly two-thirds of all the copper artifacts recovered
from Lamanai thus far originate from this particular area of the site.More than two-thirds of these are objects described by Hosler
(1985, 1994, 1995) as status display objects.

This particular
area of the site also has produced compelling evidence of Postclassic and
Spanish Colonial Period elite occupation, both in the form of architectural
remains and burials, a number of which have yielded copper status artifacts
including bells, tweezers, buttons and rings (Simmons 2005).In terms of copper production activities, all of the mis-cast pieces,
production failures and pieces of scrap sheet copper, as well as three ingots,
have been found in this particular area of the site. The associations between copper production materials, elite
residential remains, and elite status objects of copper and alloyed copper will
be examined closely during field investigations in 2007.

Precolumbian and Spanish Colonial Period Copper
and Alloyed Copper Artifacts from Lamanai, Belize*

Object Type

Number

Percentage of Assemblage

Bells (whole)

21

11.2

Bells (incomplete/mis-cast)

27

14.4

Bells (flattened, distorted)

31

16.5

Axe/celt/chisel

12

6.4

Axe fragments

11

5.8

Axe Blanks

1

0.53

Rings

14

7.5

Ornaments

13

7.0

Sheet fragments

12

6.4

Needles

10

5.3

Ingot/pigs

4

2.1

Casting reservoirs

2

1.1

Prills

10

5.3

Fish hooks

5

2.7

Pins

2

1.1

Tweezers

4

2.1

Bell-headed pins

2

1.1

Pin tip

2

1.1

Pin head

2

1.1

Tinkler

1

0.53

Necklace

1

0.53

TOTAL

187

100

Mis-cast copper bell recovered from north side midden, Structure N11-18,
Lamanai. This appears to be a bell wall fragment, probably part of the
resonating chamber of what would have been a pyriform bell.

Mis-cast copper pyriform bell recovered from
north side midden, Structure N11-18, Lamanai. Note the incomplete
resonating chamber as well as the partial suspension loop.

Small piece of flat sheet copper recovered
from the north side midden of Structure N11-8, Lamanai.

LA 2790 probable copper casting reservoirs that are remnants
of the lost wax casting process. These artifacts were recovered in direct
association with five copper axe fragments in midden deposits located east of
the Spanish Churches by Darcy Wiewall and her crew in 2004.